This Saturday, the University of Tennessee Vols football team is expected to have little trouble against the 1-8 University of North Texas.
A little more than 40 years ago, Tennessee last played this team – then known as North Texas State University – and thought it might have little trouble, too.
But it suffered an embarrassing 21-14 loss. One sports writer at the time called it the most shocking upset loss for the Vols since they had lost to the University of Chattanooga (now UTC) in 1958.
It was a defeat that noticeably demonstrated the problems the Vols program was having in the mid-1970s and would further convince many Tennessee fans that the team’s future was not good under sixth-year coach Bill Battle.
The infamous game from Tennessee’s perspective had taken place on Oct. 25, 1975. The North Texas Mean Green – which then-Chattanooga News-Free Press sports editor Austin White called “one of the strangest team names in college football” – arrived to play Tennessee in front of a crowd of 72,670 fans at Neyland Stadium.
North Texas was coached by Hayden Fry, a Marine veteran and later the successful coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes. The Mean Green’s most famous football alumnus was Mean Joe Greene of Pittsburgh Steelers fame, who had actually played against the University of Chattanooga as a sophomore in 1966 in an easy victory for North Texas.
Coach Fry said after the Tennessee game that he had actually interviewed for the Tennessee opening after the 1963 season with Tennessee athletic director Bob Woodruff, who had been his head coach when he played quarterback at Baylor. Doug Dickey, another former Woodruff player, but at Florida, was hired instead. Coach Fry also had two sons who played for North Texas in 1975.
Tennessee in 1975 was 3-2 coming into the North Texas game. The Vols had enjoyed impressive wins over Maryland, Auburn and LSU, but had lost to UCLA in Los Angeles early in the season. The week before the North Texas game, they had also lost 30-7 to a good Alabama team under coach Paul “Bear” Bryant at Birmingham’s Legion Field.
They were hoping to get back to being at least a respectable 4-2 with an expected victory over North Texas on homecoming. But the Mean Green had other ideas.
At the time of the Tennessee game, North Texas was 3-4. It had been trounced by Oklahoma State and lost convincingly to San Diego State, but had barely lost to both Memphis and Mississippi State. So this team from Denton, Texas, was at least a competitive team.
The Mean Green had decided to start their third-string quarterback, Glen Ray, against Tennessee. Besides guiding the team as quarterback, the Nebraska transfer would also do an old-fashioned quick kick.
The Vols -- which featured such players as quarterback Randy Wallace, running back Stanley Morgan, receiver Larry Seivers and future UTC coach Tommy West at tight end – went out to a 7-0 lead on a short dive by Morgan early in the second quarter.
But the fact that the Tennessee score came after two missed field goals by North Texas’ Iseed Khoury of Israel showed that a tough contest was ahead for the Vols.
Tennessee later had the ball again in the second quarter, but quarterback Gary Roach did not see defensive end Jimmy Burkholder and pitched right into his hands at the Vols 8-yard line. North Texas running back Sears Woods than scored the touchdown to help tie the game.
On the subsequent kickoff, Burkholder hit Tennessee’s Jeff Moore, who fumbled. After a recovery by Bruce Bell, Woods again scored from short distance to put North Texas up 14-7 at the half.
According to the news reports, the Vols were booed as they left the field before intermission.
After a tense-filled and back-and-forth second half, Tennessee late in the fourth quarter finally managed to reach the end zone, which in those days was decorated with the team’s name and not checkerboards. With 4:25 remaining, a Wallace-to-John Murphy pass from two yards cut the North Texas lead to 14-13.
In those days when games could end in ties, deciding whether to go for one or two points late in the contest involved a lot of strategy. Thinking the Vols might have time to get the ball back, Coach Battle called for the tying one-point kick.
The armchair coaches in the stands disagreed, and many Big Orange fans booed the decision as Jimmy Gaylor kicked the extra point.
And then the unthinkable happened. Woods – who would rush for 121 yards that game, but less than 500 yards for the entire season -- took the subsequent kickoff, faked out safetyman Billy Arbo, and went 98 yards for the go-ahead touchdown.
That would prove to be the difference, and the Vols suffered a shocking 21-14 defeat. In a game in which many Vol players were injured, their pride was damaged even more.
“Obviously dead after last week’s 30-7 loss to Alabama, UT rarely presented a cohesive offensive or an effective defense in the face of the revved-up North Texas challenge from a team that had won only three of seven games,” wrote Austin White.
Coach Battle called the loss the most disappointing defeat he ever had to accept.
Offensive guard and future Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders player Mickey Marvin, meanwhile, was calling on the players to regroup in the locker room after the game. “Everybody on this team is going to have to take a gut check,” he said. “They are going to have to prove they have it to wear the orange jersey.”
For North Texas, however, pure celebration followed. And no one was happier than coach Fry.
“I kept telling people we were getting tougher and I wanted our youngsters to believe – which was true – that they had a great opportunity,” the ecstatic coach said. “But to do it here at Tennessee, with all of its deep tradition, which I’m quite aware of, was beyond my wildest dreams.”
The Tennessee fans were obviously aware of the tradition, too, and realized the team was not living up to the past greatness.
North Texas would win out that year, while Tennessee would finish the season 7-5. The Vols would not go to a bowl for the first time since the 1964 season, although they did have a season-ending victory at Hawaii in early December.
The next season, with such standouts as Stanley Morgan and Larry Seivers and the capable quarterback Randy Wallace returning, Tennessee and coach Battle were hopeful of turning the team’s fortunes back in the right direction.
But an opening-season loss to Duke and a late season loss to Kentucky would seal the team’s fate, and the gentlemanly coach Battle resigned after a 6-5 record. He would go on to have a very lucrative career in the collegiate licensing business.
In the subsequent four decades, Tennessee would go on to enjoy a few happy moments, too, including the 1998 national championship. And there were a few down moments as well, including some of the recent seasons.
It is not always easy being a college football fan, as Tennessee fans were reminded on that homecoming afternoon of 40 years ago.
Jcshearer2@comcast.net